2017’s Most & Least Educated Cities in America

Jul 25, 2017 | Richie Bernardo, Senior Writer

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College opens many doors. Besides providing invaluable cultural experiences and the opportunity to build lifelong connections, a college education can lead to better job opportunities and increase future earning potential. And the more degree holders earn, the more tax dollars they contribute over time, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

One way to strengthen an economy, the EPI suggests, is to attract well-paying employers “by investing in education and increasing the number of well-educated workers.” In states where workers have the least schooling, for instance, the median wage is $15 an hour compared with $19 to $20 an hour in states where 40 percent or more of the working population hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Local governments appear to be catching on and maximizing the appeal of their cities to college graduates.

To determine where the most educated Americans are putting their degrees to work and thus are most valuable to their local economies, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across nine key metrics. Our data set ranges from share of adults aged 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher to quality of the public school system to gender education gap. Read on for our findings, expert insight from a panel of researchers and a full description of our methodology.

Note: For readability purposes, the above chart displays only 50 metro areas from a total sample of 150.

Ask the Experts

Research shows that a skilled and educated workforce provides a significant boost to the economy. For strategies aimed at increasing a city’s brainpower and the best approaches to educational development, we asked a panel of experts to share their thoughts on the following key questions:

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Will the Trump administration’s proposed education budget cuts — to student loans, after-school programs and teacher training, for instance — increase or decrease the level of education inequality among cities?

How can the U.S. reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

Stephen G. Katsinas

Professor of Higher Education and Political Science, Director of the Education Policy Center, and Faculty Advisor to the Carl A. Elliott Honor Society at The University of Alabama

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

They generally should not, with a couple of exceptions. First, if there is a critical community need, such as the need for rural medical doctors in a town of 17,000, like Dawson, Minnesota, or an inner city. Similarly, high-end engineering skills, or science and mathematics teachers. A preferred device that I see being used these days is student loan forgiveness. Quality of life issues—recreation, fine arts, quality public schools, and investments in postsecondary access and workforce training are where local authorities should be investing.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

In general, yes, and more importantly, they are the communities that come out of recessions first and fastest. California invests more in public higher education than other states, and its communities emerged from the Great Recession well before other areas of the country did.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Dramatically lower the cost of college attendance by making the first two years free. The College Promise Campaign has done much good work in this area. Similarly, year-round Pell Grants, approved by the Congress in the FY 2017 Budget, would be of great help for poor people to go debt free, and move up on the ladder of American economic success.

The proposed cuts are not good. Thankfully, wiser heads in the Congress, led by a bipartisan coalition that includes senior Republican senators on the Appropriations Committee, such as Thad Cochran and Richard Shelby, as well as Lamar Alexander and John Cornyn, and senior Democratic senators including Leahy, Durbin, Murray and many others, are supporting efforts to restore year-round Pell funding and maintain vital education and research programs that help all areas of our country, and lift up all of the boats.

Stephen Legomsky

The John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus at Washington University School of Law

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

Yes. To attract highly educated people from overseas, local authorities can establish government agencies specifically charged with publicizing overseas the attractive economic, social, and cultural climate of the locale and its welcoming environment for foreign nationals, and assisting immigrant integration, through assistance in finding housing, employment, English language enhancement, etc. Working with local universities to provide services to foreign students is also an effective way to encourage those students to remain in the local area after graduation, when the federal immigration laws so permit.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Investing greater resources in the public elementary and secondary schools would improve the education of students, and better prepare greater numbers of them for tertiary education or for skilled labor.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

First, before 1990, there were no numerical limits on the admission of H-1Bs (temporary professional workers). The annual limits that Congress established in that year have meant that tens of thousands of highly educated individuals have been shut out of that system, on the basis of a random lottery that arbitrarily selects some and rejects others. Those limits should be repealed, or at least significantly raised. Second, with narrow exceptions, the spouses of H-1Bs -- themselves often highly educated -- are prohibited from working in the United States. As a result, both income loss and the disruption of the spouse's career deter many talented and highly educated individuals from applying. Spouses of H-1Bs should be permitted to work.

Third, in addition to the labor certification system, which admits some foreign nationals as lawful permanent residents on the basis of a particular employer's current needs, Congress should add a Canadian-style point system, that admits permanent residents on the basis of various indicators of long-term contributions -- e.g., education level, age, experience, etc. The comprehensive immigration reform bill the Senate passed in 2013 would have done that, but the bill died in the House when Speaker Boehner refused to allow a floor vote.

They will certainly have that effect. Not all municipalities are equally able to afford the necessary funding for these programs themselves, and thus some are more dependent on federal funding than others are.

Robert J. Birgeneau

Arnold and Barbara Silverman Distinguished Professor of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, and Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

Maintaining an environment that celebrates individuality and diversity most especially with respect to race and gender. Supporting the arts and sciences generously be it via museums, theater, music, dance etc.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

This is clearly the case. Just look at how well cities like Boston, Toronto and San Francisco weathered the last recession.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

The overwhelming majority of the population is educated in public colleges and universities. Each of the federal government, the states, businesses and foundations must step up to support these institutions properly. Businesses could be particularly helpful by providing generous need-based scholarships to the institutions from which they hire their employees. This will ensure a continuing flow of highly educated future employees.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

By increasing significantly the number of H1-B visas for highly educated workers from abroad. We can also ease the process for obtaining Green Cards for highly educated future citizens.

Income inequality is the single greatest challenge facing the United States. There is a one-to-one relationship between income inequality and education inequality. So far, the Trump administration seems to be taking us in exactly the wrong direction. Frankly, Bernie Sanders would have done so as well, albeit in a different way. We need a commonsense approach to education funding by the federal government. It seems to me that we are now totally dependent on moderate Republicans to ensure that higher education is funded properly.

Min Zhou

Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies, Walter & Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in U.S.-China Relations and Communications, and Director of the Asia Pacific Center at the University of California Los Angeles

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

The more educated labor force is highly mobile. But policies oriented toward family, school, housing, public transportation, and public safety would make cities livable and more attractive to attract and retain skilled workers.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

In the currently highly globalized world, I think cities with stronger human capital would better able to cope with challenges of economic change and restructuring.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

A shortcut is to continue to attract international students, most of whom have already completed secondary schooling in their home countries and would pay for their higher education. The U.S. system of higher education is superior for training. However, without proportional investment in our own K-12 education, educational inequality would be increased.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

The U.S. immigration policy has already favored the migration of skilled workers, especially effective through higher education (where self-supporting international students would become skilled workers in the U.S. labor market).

These proposed cuts would almost certainly increase educational inequality at the national and local levels.

Michael A. Olivas

William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law and Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston Law Center

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people?

Every city and region is different, but the infrastructure needs to be there -- comprehensive school/college resources, growth, airport, transportation, some population density, and progressive local government.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

Yes, at a certain level, but when oil prices tank, all Texas cities hurt and rebound differentially -- Houston was hammered by Enron, but recovered due to growth, infrastructure and health care.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Make college affordable and encourage the poor to take advantage -- in many respects, we favor the advantaged, who then become selfish and unwilling to pay for the less-advantaged. Helping the poor and under-educated is the real long-lasting key, in my humble opinion. Quit undermining and robbing public schools.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

The clown cars are circling, and they are trying to privatize everything. It is an unmitigated disaster, predictably so. Our salvation is that they will overplay their hand, as they are doing in tax policy, health care, and immigration. The U.S. is like California 20 years ago, when Wilson overplayed his nativist hand.

Joseph Robinson Cimpian

Associate Professor of Economics and Education Policy at New York University Steinhardt

The Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts could increase inequality between (and within) cities in a number of ways. Before getting into how the federal cuts can affect inequality, it’s worth noting that K-12 public schooling in the U.S. is primarily funded by local tax dollars, and not as much by federal tax dollars, so much of the inequality in educational expenditures between cities cannot be directly linked to the federal government. That said, the federal government can take steps to reduce inequality in expenditures by offering funds to low-resourced schools and communities, and the Trump administration has signaled less willingness to offset existing inequalities.

At the higher education level, proposed cuts to financial aid can negatively affect students from low- and middle-income families. To give just one example, the maximum size of the Pell Grant students can receive would be cut by about $1000 per year. For low-income students (the primary recipients of these grants) and non-traditional students, these grant-based funds can make the difference between staying in college or not. However, cuts to Pell Grants will not only affect low-income students, as research shows that the proportion of children from families with annual incomes above $50,000 has increased during the past decade, as the maximum size of Pell Grants has risen. Thus, these proposed cuts can reduce the amount of grant funding going to children from middle-income families as well, and may even affect their Pell-funding more.

Proposed cuts to research-funding agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) can also increase inequality between cities, by affecting the revenue streams for institutions of higher education. As research-intensive universities compete for a shrinking pool of research funds, those less able to compete will likely see decreased revenues, which can have a ripple effect on the university’s and city’s workforce, particularly in places dependent on universities, such as college towns. Drops in research funding revenue and other sources of state and federal aid can also result in public universities seeking to change the composition of their student population, admitting students that they can charge higher tuitions to -- such as out-of-state and international students -- or students less dependent on grant aid.

Beyond the proposed cuts to the education budget, it’s important to recognize that other proposed cuts will affect education, even though we may not think of education as being affected by these funding mechanisms. For example, Medicaid provides funding for school nurses, and cutting funding for Medicaid can reduce schools’ abilities to provide health services for all students, not just for those who receive Medicaid. Moreover, Medicaid provides funding for special education services, including therapies, equipment, and salaries for personnel providing health services; therefore, cutting Medicaid will likely result in fewer dollars for special education, local governments having to find the funds elsewhere. Also, as health and nutrition are critical to academic success, proposed federal cuts to health and medical programs more generally can have negative academic consequences, particularly for the most vulnerable children in our society.

James Nehring

Associate Professor of Leadership in Schooling, and Graduate Coordinator for Ph.D. & Ed.D. Doctoral Programs at the University of Massachusetts Lowell

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

Yes, economically integrated communities yield the highest likelihood of an education that will produce well-educated young people. Unfortunately, there are macroeconomic barriers to this preferred condition, such as cost of housing, that excludes those with less money from communities with more money.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

Of course.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Rethink public education accountability. Instead of asking how do we measure something, we should ask, first and foremost, how do we inspire and engage children and youth.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

This nation has been built by, and continues to be built by immigrants. Immigrants tend to be hard working, and risk-takers. That’s what we want. We should have generous and welcoming immigration policies.

These policies promote huge inequality, because they will put up access barriers to education for lower income families, and drive up already untenable levels of debt for higher education.

Gabriel R. Serna

Assistant Professor of Higher Education & Program Leader in the School of Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

The goal of policies aimed at attracting highly educated people can actually include many unforeseen spillovers. Namely, that when such policies are adopted, they can have deleterious effects on those who are not as well educated and on a lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder, particularly in terms of gentrification. The flip side to this is that more highly educated people in one place can also mean that there is increased civic engagement, better economic and medical outcomes, and an enhanced focus on education.

In order to attract more highly-educated individuals to their localities, cities and counties have a few practical mechanisms at their disposal. A leading example is offering mortgage credits, so that homes are purchased in certain areas. Another one might be providing some means of offsetting high rental prices. Again, the social implications of such policies are dual-edged.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

Most of the research suggests that individuals who are highly-educated tend to face far lower unemployment rates, and can withstand economic shocks better. Hence, if a city's populace is made up of such individuals, it is likely that such localities will fare much better when the economy takes a downturn.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

Simply put, the best thing we can do as a country to develop a more educated workforce is to invest heavily in education at all levels. Another way to develop a more educated workforce is to invest in those at the lower and middle ends of the economic spectrum. Indeed, disparities remain across racial and socioeconomic groups with regard to education and educational attainment. As the U.S. faces a huge demographic shift, its education system will need to attract, retain, and graduate individuals from backgrounds that are decidedly underrepresented on college and university campuses.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

The Trump Administration has taken up quite a hostile position with regard to immigration, and particularly immigration from certain Muslim countries (travel ban) and Mexico (border wall). These types of policies have a chilling effect on the immigration of highly-educated individuals to the U.S. Another consideration is that even if they decide to immigrate, once here, the same chilling effect can be felt in the Administration's rhetoric and its resultant social reverberations. Indeed, Canada has seen increased interest and enrollments from those affected by the travel ban. This signals that students, most highly-educated, will indeed look elsewhere when immigration policy is inhospitable.

In my view, these budget cuts will almost certainly impact educational disparities across cities with more highly-educated individuals, and those with fewer. Research has shown time and again that those at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum suffer most when things like after-school programming, free-lunches, and teacher training are cut. This is because those who are highly-educated typically have far more access to educational resources, and can easily make up the differences when such cuts are implemented. For poorer students, this is simply not the case.

The same scenario is likely to play out with regard to the student loan program. Many individuals, myself included, decided to attend college and graduate school thanks to the support of the American taxpayer. Without this support, it is unlikely that we would have been successful. Additionally, many of us who enter public service do so both out of a sense of duty and the fact that student loans would be forgiven at some point, since our wages are significantly below those in the private sector for similar work. Such cuts are short-sighted at best, and create deepening inequities at worst.

Elton Mykerezi

Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

Yes, highly educated cities are wealthier, they grow faster and are more resilient to shocks.

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

I believe cities should strive to become happier, healthier and more productive places to live and work. I do not believe, however, that cities should go out of their way to target policies and programs to attract highly educated people.

Conscientious investments in infrastructure and smart design can help cities become happier places, as well as an array of potential policies related to housing, land use and public finance. In general, I believe that each such potential policy should be subject to careful evaluation, to ensure that benefits outweigh costs, and that individuals are free to make choices, but are responsible for their full social cost.

Cities should pursue policies and programs that make sense as part of a strategy for becoming a better place to live, but catering to one’s desired population, as opposed to their existing tax base could be unproductive. For instance, consider the following thought experiment. Suppose that “city A” decided to either tax more or invest a disproportionate share of their resources into public amenities that are favored by more educated people, in the hopes of attracting some from “city B.” If these expenditures make any progress towards their intended goal, one would expect “city B” to do the same in return. In the long run, it might be easy to end up with no net movement and a public subsidy catering to the consumption preferences for public goods of the more educated (and likely affluent) in both cities, with no net gain in either.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

I think the most productive investment in human capital at this point is in affordable, high quality early childhood education. There is clear evidence that investing in human capital has its highest returns early on in life, and we are currently heavily under-invested in this area. Reforms in K-12 education targeted at selectively recruiting and/or retaining highly effective teachers would also likely have notable impact, although it is less clear how large-scale increases in average teacher effectiveness can be achieved in practice. Apprenticeships (e.g., into licensed trades) are another area of workforce development that are under-used in the U.S. in my opinion.

How can the US reform its immigration policy in order to attract and retain highly educated workers from abroad?

Canada’s points system has achieved good results. The immigration authority assigns weight to desired qualifications (e.g., education, language skill, etc.) and admits the highest ranked applicants each year (or ones that cross a certain threshold). The U.S. diversity lottery also takes applications from countries worldwide, but it only assigns weight to country of origin in order to introduce more diversity. Shifting it to a points system, like Canada retaining current weights for country of origin but re-weighing by qualifications within each country, is a simple twist that could make an existing program more productive for the U.S.

The U.S. “Employment Based Immigration” platform is the main intake mechanism for skilled workers. I believe it has worked well historically, in that for the most part, it requires a U.S. degree and offer of full time employment as a prerequisite to being able to work. I believe it enhances attendance in U.S. colleges and universities from worldwide audiences, then it retains selectively among those graduates.

For reductions in educational budgets to increase education inequality across cities, these must be disproportionally productive in less educated areas. This might well be the case, but I don’t know of any evidence, off the top of my head, that it is so. There has been quite a bit of discussion among economists historically on whether larger budgets translate into higher performing schools. Some evidence exists that investments in lower class size and schooling infrastructure are productive, but other investments may not produce the expected returns. The areas you mention as examples may produce very different results.

There is evidence that scholarships affect college attendance (by about 3 percentage points for $1,000 spent), but the evidence on student loan programs is more mixed. Further, the evidence on whether financial assistance has the most impact on lower or average-higher income Americans is also very mixed. So it is difficult to ascertain what reductions in student loan availability will do to enrollments, and even harder to predict what may do to inequality in education attainment (across individuals or cities).

Investments in teacher training are another area of ambiguity, however. There is some compelling evidence out there that large-scale teacher mentoring programs have produced no results, and that it is much easier to select good teachers than to train people into becoming good teachers.

David H. Feldman

Professor of Economics at the College of William & Mary and Author of "The Road Ahead for America’s Colleges and Universities

Should local authorities target policies and programs to attract highly educated people? If so, what works?

I’m not generally a fan of government programs that presume the future is easily foreseen, and specific policies targeting highly educated people can easily be handouts to the well-off. On the other hand, there are visible impediments to growth. In many cities, lost industry has blighted whole areas. This urban decay is a huge barrier to drawing an educated labor force, because it raises the risk for any small to medium sized business setting up shop. Public/private partnerships can take on the risk of redeveloping a building or a block more easily than any small business alone, and once redevelopment begins, it creates a virtuous circle that makes urban living attractive again. Along with public attention to basic infrastructure, this is probably the best way to draw educated workers back to urban cores.

Are highly educated cities better able to withstand economic shocks?

Highly educated cities likely have a more diversified economy. Cities most at risk rely on a single manufacturing industry, which makes the local economy and tax base more volatile than the nation’s economy as a whole.

In your opinion, what is the most important step we can take as a country to develop a more educated and skilled workforce?

The U.S. higher education system has become more bifurcated over that last forty years. Major flagship state universities and well-endowed private institutions are becoming more selective, and showering ever more resources on high-income students. But these schools educate relatively few students from low-income families. Most of America’s less privileged students attend increasingly resource-starved community colleges and non-flagship public universities. We can begin to undo this if states and the federal government reward schools that work with first generation and low-income students. One way to do this is to offer public and private non-profit schools an operating subsidy, based on how much in Pell Grant money their students receive. This would reward schools that serve the underprivileged.

Trump’s K-12 budget cuts are likely to fall disproportionately on cities with lower than average family incomes. For higher education, the administration’s proposals are a mixed bag. Allowing year-round Pell Grants may permit some lower-income students to finish college in fewer years. But the administration’s refusal to discipline the most predatory for-profit colleges will spoil the gain. Many low-income students attend for-profits, and the most egregious student debt problems are found in that sector. Year-round Pell Grants will lead some low-income students to borrow even more in their first year, and many of these students will not complete a degree or certificate.

Methodology

To identify the most and least educated cities in America, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 150 most populated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across two key dimensions, including “Educational Attainment” and “Quality of Education & Attainment Gap.”

We evaluated those dimensions using nine relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest educational attainment and quality of education.

Finally, we determined each metro area’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the metro areas in our sample.

Educational Attainment - Total Points: 80

Share of Adults Aged 25 & Older with a High School Diploma or Higher: Full Weight (~20.00 Points)

Share of Adults Aged 25 & Older with at Least Some College Experience or an Associate's Degree or Higher: Full Weight (~20.00 Points)

Share of Adults Aged 25 & Older with a Graduate or Professional Degree: Full Weight (~20.00 Points)

Quality of Education & Attainment Gap - Total Points: 20

Quality of Public School System: Double Weight (~5.71 Points)Note: This metric is based on GreatSchools.org’s ratings of U.S. public school systems.

Average Quality of Universities: Double Weight (~5.71 Points)Note: This metric is based on U.S. News & World Reports “Best Colleges” rankings.

Enrolled Students in Top 231 Universities per Capita: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)Note: This metric is based on U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of America’s top 200 universities.

Racial Education Gap*: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)Note: This metric specifically measures the difference between the percentage of black bachelor’s degree holders and the percentage of their white counterparts.

Gender Education Gap*: Full Weight (~2.86 Points)Note: This metric specifically measures the difference between the percentage of female bachelor’s degree holders and the percentage of their male counterparts.

*Additional context: In metro areas where women have an advantage over men and blacks have an advantage over whites, we gave extra credit compared to the metro areas with no gender-based/racial inequality.

Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, GreatSchools.org and U.S. News & World Report.

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Community Discussion

@4djleibo

August 2, 2017

This is a very interesting article. I happen to be part of a volunteer advocate program for San Jose Unified School District for special needs programs. We also help advocate for parents who are bilingual and do not understand the process of IEP meeting. Our research has proven that there is a big gap within the quality of programs offered in our school district. Does this also impact economics forecast for families?

This criteria is always skewed for Beaumont because 1. Lamar is not ranked with the ivy-league universities, and 2. Students enrolled at Lamar are not considered. Since Lamar is a great school that our community supports and our students attend locally rather than leave to attend an "Ivy" school, this report criteria is not accurate for Beaumont.